


merely shadows

by mousediary



Category: Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Body Horror, Character Study, F/F, Fade Bullshit, Gen, References to Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-20 20:30:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11342670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousediary/pseuds/mousediary
Summary: “The sun grows dark, but lo! Here comes the dawn!” The Hero of Ferelden, and three apostates.





	1. Chapter 1

“We’re getting too old for this,” she complains, but scooches aside to make room. “People will talk.”

“Oh please,” he scoffs, taking care not to bump his head as he clambers in, knees crunching softly on the pallet, “as if anyone will believe you and I…” He trails off, flapping his hand awkwardly between the two of them.

“Aw, don’t sell yourself short. You’ve got a nice enough... face.” Does he? It mostly just looks long to her, but maybe it’s one of those things, like saying a word so many times it stops meaning anything. All he really looks like is himself.

“Thanks ever so,” he says dryly, scrunching his nose. She just rolls her eyes in response and tugs the covers up over them, turning her back as he flops about trying to get comfortable.

It takes a while; they really are getting a bit big to be sharing, and he’s clearly restless over—whatever’s wrong this time, whatever worry or nightmare or memory that’s been rolling about, gathering momentum in his head. He eventually ends up curled loosely around her, feet stretching past her feet and head bowed over her head, breath stirring her hair. There’s no space for them to share the pillow, so he tucks an elbow under himself for support, letting a sour smell out into the air. She sees the image, overlaid as if painted on glass, of herself curling her lip in disgust at this, and keeps her face placid as she evenly breathes in the stink. In and out, until she hardly notices it at all.

Still, he fidgets. She’s starting to worry that something might have _happened_ , something worse than another nightmare about his mother, when he wraps an arm around her waist—first making sure to nudge her on the back, so as not to startle—and clings to her, like a child. Normally, this is when she shoves him off; she’s indulged him plenty letting him stay in the first place, and she won't let the rumors get so out of control that the Templars catch on.

This time, she doesn’t. She feels the surprise register in his body even as he shuffles closer, but he doesn’t say anything about it. She misses him, which doesn’t make sense, because they saw each other only a few hours ago in mess hall, but she does. It takes up a shockingly physical space in her chest, so tight and painful to breathe around she’s surprised her next exhale doesn’t come out in a whistle.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him. “I’d do it differently, if I could. I swear it. If I knew what I know now, I’d do it all so differently.”

“There is no need to apologize to me.”

“There _is_ ,” she insists miserably, into her sheets. “I betrayed you, twice. I let you down. I let you—I don’t know how you can even stand to look at me.”

“Why should I be unable to look at you?” he asks, flat.

It hits like a sword to the gut, even as she recognizes what this is. The arm draped over her middle is unnaturally heavy, and though it lies still as stone against her, she can feel the energy roiling wild under its skin, feel its echo thrumming along the line of contact between his chest and her back.

Surana takes a deep breath, and concentrates, and her surroundings—the hot rasp of the blanket against her legs, the knit of Jowan’s flesh and bone and sinew, the thick, stale smell of too many mouths to a room—melt into mist, all the substance leached out. She pulls herself into a standing position, head passing uncomfortably through the wood and packed straw of the top bunk, knees similarly swamped in the bedframe, and then walks through it all like water. It tugs at her briefly, then recedes.

Before the scene can dissolve completely, the demon speaks up. “This is why I chose you, you know,” he says, no longer affecting vacant Tranquility, but retaining the timbre and nasality of her best friend, age twelve. "Or rather, this is why I was chosen for you."

“Put that away,” she snaps. Her back is to him, but she can feel him convey something like a shrug of acquiescence. She looks down at her own body as it judders, confused, before warping and congealing into its adult shape. When she’s sure it’s safe, she turns to find a rat, perched quite comfortably at the edge of her bed, looking up at her with beady jam-drop eyes. He cocks his head condescendingly, as if asking for permission to continue.

She crosses her arms, annoyed to find herself in her drafty Circle robes, and doesn’t walk away.

He takes his time giving his face and paws a thorough cleaning before going on. “One would think Desire, perhaps, what with the way they crammed you together, or Fear, what with all that doctrine they had you swallow. But no, Irving decided _I_ was the best fit. Do you know why?"

Surana exhales noisily. “No, Mouse, I haven’t a clue. Please, tell me more.”

He chitters at her. It comes across as a _tsk_. “What does a mage want?”

“Freedom,” she answers promptly, then adds, thinking of Morrigan, “Survival. Autonomy.”

Mouse lashes his tail. She’s pretty sure rats don’t _do_ that, not to mention the crisp little flourish he adds in: the sound of a cracking whip. “Wrong! What is it a mage loses, when she’s told she can’t live without it? What fills her belly when she refuses her meals? What compels her to study day and night? Beg for extra tutoring? Practice her _smile_?”

“This isn’t really the Circle,” she points out, indicating the gray-green mistiness, the strange pillars of dust tumbling gently over and through the furniture. “Give me a lecture or a riddle, not both.”

It disturbs her to see an expression she can only describe as _simpering_ on his furry little face. “We need your help. Lily and I can’t do this on our own!” Jowan at nineteen. Deeper, but still that floaty, nasal quality. “Please, Surana. It needs to be you. You’re the only one I trust.”

Surana’s had enough of this. She visualizes scooping her hand in, green murk swishing through her fingers, and plucking her body out like a marble. Around her, the Fade clings, then falls away.

* * *

She doesn’t bother trying to go back to sleep, after that. Instead, she conjures a ball of light to wash and dress by, and then slips from her chambers to her office, latching the door behind her with quiet relish.

Vigil’s Keep is an ancient fortress, and most of its windows are little more than slits for ventilation. The room Surana took over as an office is an exception, with its east-facing wall inset with a row of real glass windows: small, colorless, and plain in design, but a luxury nonetheless. Nathaniel mentioned something once about their being installed by his grandfather Tarleton, who used the room often, though he didn't say what for. She figured it would be rude to ask, in case he thought she suspected it was something nefarious.

She lets the magelight fizzle out, sets her neat stack of correspondences to the side, and climbs up to sit on her desk, feet swinging childishly. The sky is only barely more blue than black; it’ll be hours before the Keep starts stirring, before anyone needs anything from her. So she sits, for a while, and watches the sun rise, stately and glorious, over the thatched rooftops and stone walls.

And then it’s another day. She heads downstairs to post the duty roster, eat breakfast with her Wardens, run morning drills, meet with Varel, meet with Woolsey, check in with Herren and Wade about that armor she commissioned, take Nathaniel, Velanna, and Sigrun out to the Wending Wood to recover a lost silk caravan, end up having to sweet-talk an ancient statue into coming to peace with its death at the hands of a long-dead magister, and then trudge all the way back in time for supper.

After, she holes up in her office again to review the estate’s expenditures. Varel offered, very pointedly, to take care of all of it himself—perhaps offended at her apparent lack of trust in him, or else condescendingly amused at a Circle elf’s lack of understanding of the role of a seneshal. She’s unsure how to explain it to him, that the Keep is _hers_ , and that means she has to take care of it, down to every mind-numbing detail: every sack of meal in the larder, every rack of dried fish, every stinking vat of tallow.

It’s slow work, admittedly; Surana hasn’t a head for figures. But she has a head for work, and it gets her about a third of the way through by the time she hears a knock at the door.

“Enter,” she says, and sighs internally when she sees who does.

Even if she didn’t assign the patrols, it would be obvious he’s just come from one: his robes are freshly changed, but his hair is matted with sweat to his temples, and there’s a spray of dried mud on his jaw he must have missed washing up. He scratches at it absentmindedly and the crusted bits fall onto her floor.

It's fine. Irritating though he might be, dealing with him is second nature. For all that he stuck out in Kinloch—the infamous seven-time escapee!—here, in the real world, he’s Circle through and through. Won over by a scarf, an earring, and a cat, and so damn grateful for all of it.

“Hello, Anders,” she says with a warm smile. “Did you need anything?”

He returns the smile distractedly and glances around the room. "Hi. Sorry, this isn’t exactly official business, and I know you must have other matters to attend to, but—can we... talk?”

“Of course. I always make time for my Wardens.” She knows how to make a stock line sound genuine, and his posture eases a fraction. She gestures at the chair across from her desk. “Please, sit.”

He does, spends some time rearranging his legs. She waits patiently. “Perhaps this is a strange thing to bring up, but there's really no one else I could talk about this with.”

How she wishes she could indulge in a grimace, at that. Instead, she tilts her head, jokingly apprehensive. “Now you’re just making me nervous.”

He flashes her a sheepish smile. “Can’t have that, can we? Don’t fret, it’s nothing concerning. I was just... talking to Justice. More fool me, I know. It was the same self-righteous rot as always, but some of the things he said, that I—you don’t think I’m selfish, do you?” He pauses. "Ha! No, wrong question. What I mean is..." Another pause, long enough that if not for the tension in his brow, the faint, worried grinding of his teeth, she would have considered the thread dropped. "Should I be doing more, d'you think? Do we—are all of us obligated to do something... more?" he asks, finally, then snaps his mouth shut and drops his gaze.

Surana blinks at him. What is she supposed to say to that? _You? You’ve done plenty for our people. You’re the reason I didn’t step foot outside once between the ages of eight and eighteen, but no, of course you’re not_ selfish _._

She knows she’s being unfair, that it was the Templars’ decision to punish them all for the actions of one apprentice, just a boy at the time. But the old resentments die hard. Every apprentice her age or younger, too young to know Anders personally, either idolized or despised him—and Surana, being one of Irving’s favorites herself, saw all too clearly how antsy Templars got when an off-limits mage caused trouble, how they took out their frustrations on the small, the friendless, the elvhen.

At her silence, his mouth twists crookedly. “I know, I know, I shouldn't have just sprung that on you. 'Unbearably handsome mage reveals hidden depths?' 'Local spirit healer sensitive as he is talented?' Must be an awful shock, I can't imagine.” He kneads a bit of robe he has gathered in his lap, looking honestly bashful.

“No, I’m sorry,” she says. “I was just surprised to hear you say that. Of course you’re not selfish. You grew up in the Circle and learned how to survive. It's not as if you had a choice about it. But you're right about doing more. That's—I worry all the time. About doing more."

Anders goggles at her. “You? You’ve done more for mages than anyone will for the rest of the age! More than all those squabbling Fraternity leaders put together, I'd say. I mean, you must know how good it looks, the Archdemon slain by a Circle mage—and that boon! Andraste’s tits, the _boon_? There’ll be songs about you—there _are_ songs about you, and you’re what, twenty years old?”

“Nineteen. And I wasn’t always like this. They’re calling me a radical, nowadays. Libertarian scum, apostate harborer, secret maleficarum, all of it. But until I was conscripted, I never even _considered_ a future for myself outside the Circle. All I thought about was a quiet life: keeping my head down, publishing some papers, perhaps teaching a class. I wanted it. I worked hard for it. But you were different. I may have shown the world some of what free mages can accomplish, but you showed all of us, back then, that we didn’t have to just _take_ it.” She sits back, satisfied. There. That should paint her in a sympathetic light, and appease his ego, all in one go.

But he looks troubled. “I… thank you. Really, I mean that. It wasn’t half so noble as you make it sound. And I understand, you know. Why you couldn't think of leaving. Weren't you taken very young?”

“I’m surprised you remember,” she demurs.

“No, I do. It took me a while, but I do. You came in at the same time as me. I remember, because I took one look at you and thought: this place must be a true horror, because that’s just a babe, with no business at all being away from her mother.” He meets her gaze then, and holds it, face pinched resolutely. He must think they’re having a _moment_ , and it’s this— _this_ she can’t stand about him. The flirting, the gallows humor, the fumbling attempts at politics, the wide-eyed incredulity at the simplest kindnesses—all that she can put up with. She’s as Kinloch as he is, after all, through and through.

No, what really gets to her is the undercurrent, upsettingly obvious despite all the bullshit, of a kind of reflexive, instinctual gentleness. She first saw it in the way Anders’ eyebrows drew down when they saw Rowland’s state and he suggested a shot of whiskey to numb the pain. _Jowan would have made a good healer_ , she realized in that moment, and the thought stuck to her mind like a burr.

“A babe?” she says, mock outraged. “I was six!”

“And I was twelve, making me practically old enough to be your father, as far as I was concerned."

She pulls a face. "Don't be disgusting."

Anders laughs, leaning forward, propping his elbows on the clawed arms of his chair for support. "Oh, don't worry. I certainly don't see you that way now. No danger of insubordination from my front. If anything, you're almost like... a cousin. A very, _very_ distant one, if you like," he says, striking a pose so that the candlelight bounces off his single earring.

She mirrors his body language, arms sliding forward as she shifts her weight onto her desk. “You need to strike that line from your repertoire," she tells him. "Immediately."

He makes a show of considering it, and then dips his head in concession. "You may have a point."

"Of course I do," she says, and favors him with a sunny smile. "All the sense comes from my side of the family."

A week later, he asks her to help him find his _phylactery_. She wonders what it would be like if she could fall over laughing. Or vomit. It’s just as mind-bogglingly stupid of a plan as last time—just as likely to be a trap, and won’t that reflect badly on the Wardens, on _her_ , when her reputation is the only leverage, the only shield she really has—

“Of course I’ll help,” she says, reaching up to squeeze him on the shoulder. “You deserve to be free.” 


	2. Chapter 2

She can’t remember why she called the carriage to a stop. Perhaps a break for the horses? The driver? Or perhaps she simply wanted a moment to appreciate the lovely Ferventis midmorning, heat not yet scorching and quaint Ferelden countryside all spread out around them in a swaying patchwork of green.

The lady shines, the moment she steps out into the light, all magnificently decked out in milk white and pale gold; waist pinched in with a lushly embroidered whalebone corset, fanning out into a full, bell-shaped skirt; wide black braids pinned close to her head in sinuous curves; four lines of pearls fastened tight around her throat; a low, plunging neckline fringed with a spray of Antivan lace. It casts tiny, intricate shadows, only visible on her dark skin under the full weight of the sun, that flicker and play as she breathes. It’s nothing like anything she’s ever seen before.

She’s tilted her head back for a good look at the sky, nearly sighing in happiness for the sheer amount of it—what a truly irresponsible amount of sky, all that endless, ringing blue—when she spots a little blackbird, perched on a nearby post and watching curiously. The lady watches it flit about: now on a fence, now on a barrel, a haybale, a rooftop. She smiles, knowing the story. There’s a jewel-encrusted mirror in her hand. She holds it out in offering.

The blackbird regards her warily. The lady responds with an encouraging smile, tilting the mirror back and forth so that it catches the light. She wants it, she does, but she can't. She knows the story too. Still, she flutters over to land lightly on the lady's shoulder, clawed feet pricking her bare skin, and peers in.

They look _right_ together: she, sleek and handsome in iridescent green and purple, and she, drenched in sunlight, almost violently bright. Everything about her is strange, to the blackbird, so fundamentally different from anything she's known before. Looking at her is almost like taking a form for the first time: the riot of sensations, the sense of the world cracking open and reordering itself along new lines.

"Flatterer," teases the lady. "You're just shocked to see an elf in a nice dress, is all."

She puffs up indignantly. As if such a thought ever crossed her mind! She makes her decision right then, and takes off, claws digging in briefly and wings flapping noisily.

The lady stands there, frozen, feeling all the stupid hope of a moment ago leak away. She ruined it again, for good this time, and now she's really never coming back, and—there's something nudging her hand. She looks down to find a wolf, nosing impatiently at her gloved fingers, looking up at her with pretty yellow eyes.

Bemused, the lady moves her hand up to scratch between the wolf's ears, who allows it for a second, then nods her head imploringly towards the Wilds.

"I'm—" she cuts herself off with a laugh, understanding hitting her, "not a _prize_ , you know."

She shifts back into a blackbird and flies up to tug a lock of hair free from her complicated braid, the lady whirling around with another laugh, trying to keep her in her sight. _No_ , she thinks, burningly honest, _but I want you all the same_.

She really can't say no to that. The lady gathers her skirts and steps forward into the Wilds, and it swallows everything: the ramshackle village, the picturesque fields and hills, the gleaming carriage, all converted into a gnarled labyrinth of rain-wet tree roots and cold fog.

The blackbird swoops, jubilant, and leads the way forward. Things will be different now. She changed it, and now everything will be different. The Wilds move to accommodate them, raising mossy green pathways up out of the swamp, lining them thickly with spikes of blood-dark reeds. It has its own beauty, the shock of those jewel-tone reds and greens emerging from the mist, stark against the cloudy layers of dust-brown dead underbrush, delicate as spun sugar. The blackbird dives again in agreement, and charges ahead: now a bear, now a spider, now a shimmering swarm of locusts.

They come to a house.

The lady feels the air pull together as the swarm converges back into a blackbird, who settles on her shoulder, looking at the hut with new, critical eyes. It’s—poor, and dull, and lonely, and strange, not at all the sort of place that would make her want to stay. The lady wants to protest, but then the ground jolts, sliding forward—and they're inside.

And inside, of course, is a witch. _The_ witch, although she doesn’t look it: face unlined and hair still dark, hanging down her chest in loose waves. Her eyes narrow, taking in the two of them, and her mouth opens to deliver the same furious speech. And it is the same, word for word; she knows this, despite hearing nothing but a ringing in her ears.

The witch stands abruptly, and the lady can only parse out the very end of her sentence ("—all for the sake of a pretty bauble!") before a hand closes around her arm and grips tight. The blackbird squawks in alarm, tries to peck her mother's fingers away, but it's no use. The lady stills in place. She feels her body go brittle, her ribcage hollow out, the frills of her dress freezing in shape, all the tiny holes in its lace trim gumming over with glaze. As soon as the witch lays a hand on her, she knows exactly where all the fractures will be, the jagged lines hot with potential all over her body.

But then the witch lets go, and looks over her shoulder at the open doorway. Her eyebrows lift.

“Well. It appears we're due for some fun,” she says, mildly, one white hand folded over the other.

In an instant, the blackbird becomes a young girl with long, snarled hair, who wastes no time grabbing her hand and pulling hard. “That means _run_ ,” she says urgently.

 _I can’t_ , thinks the lady, skidding uselessly across the floor. The entire wide base of her skirt is solid now, and she tips forward precariously—

The girl stops, grips her forearms to steady her. "You can," she says firmly, right into her face. "After all your needling, have you forgotten so soon?"

With that, she turns again and tugs even harder. The lady topples over, sees the floor rushing rapidly at her, and—doesn't shatter. Instead, she finds herself standing, on four sturdy paws. She twitches one experimentally, rolls her shoulders. The girl bops her sharply on the head. "Run!"

They run.

Before, it was a game, but now she knows better. If they find her, they will hurt her: cut her neck clean down to the bone, mount her head on a pike—corner her alone, and then it'll all be over, everything she worked for. Everyone will stop talking to her, even Jowan, because nobody talks to those kids; they always up getting transferred quietly, or made Tranquil, and either way they never, ever make it to their Harrowing.

Where before, the Wilds opened up to them, offered them an easy path through, now it twists and obstructs. Fragments of white stone structures, weeping with lichen, rise up in odd places: toppled archways sinking far too quickly into the ground, orderly rows of trees with windows set into them, grand staircases winding their way across the sky, held up by nothing at all. They find themselves circling back to the same places, even when they run in a straight line, losing time trying to puzzle out better routes, slowing down as they trudge through the reeds and the muck. All the while, their pursuers march on unimpeded, to the beat of a terrifyingly regular _clank-clank-clank_.

They find themselves backed into something between a grove and a room. The ground is mushy swamp laid over stone like a carpet, the walls transition seamlessly from braided tree-trunks to bricks, and then back again; there is even a roof of sorts, a tenuous dome formed out of panes of eggshell-thin glass filling the gaps between branches. They rattle faintly with every _clank-clank-clank-clank_ , now growing deafening at their backs.

Running won't work. The wolf shifts back into a lady, turns around, and waits for the Templars to come.

"What are you doing?" the girl demands, horrified at the change. "Are you daft? Did my mother knock the brain out of your skull? They'll brand you a maleficarum! Kill you! Pluck your eyes out for a trophy!" She takes hold of the lady's arm and emphasizes every syllable—tripping slightly over _mal-ef-i-car-um_ —with a vicious yank.

"It's fine," she replies, and grabs her hand. "Just trust me. Everything will be fine."

Maybe she knows one of them, maybe they owe her a favor, maybe they can work out a deal. "It's fine. It's fine. Everything will be just fine," she repeats, desperately, as a slit appears in the wall before them. It widens, draws back like a curtain to reveal rows and rows of helmets. There tens of them, dozens, far more than the Chantry would ever reasonably send after a couple of backwater swamp apostates.

The frontmost one breaks away from the crowd to walk towards them. "Ser," she wants to begin, but only has time for an inhale before he clatters to a stop, mere feet away, and slowly lifts his visor. Pale skin, dark eyes. _Cullen_.

It's the best she could have hoped for. “Ser, please." Remember what he likes: innocent, cow eyes, nothing too saccharine or coy. She glances down at the girl. “She’s but a child. Couldn’t we bring her back? Help her?”

He shakes his head frantically, purplish bags forming under his eyes, skin going waxy. She has to clench her teeth and tamp down on the urge to gag, knowing what he’ll say next.

His voice is just as high and hysterical as she remembers when he says, “My ill-advised infatuation, a _mage_ of all things—” And then he stops, staggers back at the Winter’s Grasp that hits him square in the chest. She watches as the metal of his breastplate burbles—violently, like boiling water—under the web of lacy frost radiating out from the point of impact. Larger ice crystals follow after, criss-crossing sharply across his body, as the bubbles erupt into glossy black eyes, bursting like ripe blackberries in the gaps between streaks of ice. She can even see their long, fine eyelashes, a whole field of them unfurling at once and blinking wetly. Strange growths nudge their way out from under his helmet, fangs of a sort, long and serrated and eagerly clacking together.

She stands, rooted to the spot. She only wanted him to _shut up_. Cracks appear in the ice, slush falling off him as Cullen flexes his new limbs, bulky and finely flossed in pale greenish fur, and charges forward.

 _A spell_ , thinks the lady. _Think of a spell, any spell, even_ —

An arcane bolt whizzes from over her shoulder, and the creature rears back again with a whuff. It recovers quicker, this time, falling back securely on its squat hind legs. But it hardly makes it another step before it's hit with two more arcane bolts, one after the other in quick succession. She recognizes the move: shoot from one end, twirl, shoot from the other.

Not about to be outdone, the lady casts Shock. The entire lumpy outline of the thing fizzes blue as it seizes up, limbs scrabbling and twitching. She keeps it up long after it goes still, watching its legs blacken and curl in on themselves, watching its eyeballs inflate and rupture, one by one, oozing some kind of milky blue-white jelly. She keeps it up even as her palms start burning, pumping the corpse full of lightning until it's completely, unrecognizably charred. Then she lets her hands drop, and what's left of the Fear demon collapses into dust. Around her, the veneer of the Korcari Wilds peels away, leaving nothing but barren rock and a glaring green sky.

“I admit, I never did cherish the thought,” comments the girl—now a woman grown, with her hair tied up and a staff strapped to her back, "of you growing up trapped in that grand old Chantry phallus, surrounded day and night by armored perverts.”

“Don’t,” says Surana, eyes stinging. She'd rather hear anything other than that voice right now. “Just don’t. I’m not in the mood.”

Mouse doesn't let up. “What?” he says, putting on a squint and poking his neck out, turtleish.

She hates it when he bothers with the details, and her voice rises to a near-shout as she goes on. “And don’t you give me that rot, demon. You know as well as I do that Chantry perverts keep you fed. At least Ser Cullen,” and she makes a show of wiping the hand he held off on her—damn it, robes again, “didn’t _touch_.”

"Oh for—try and change my form."

"What?"

He levels an unimpressed look at her. "You are a powerful mage, are you not? You have some control over how creatures of the Fade appear to you. If I am a demon, I will change according to your perception. Go on, do your worst," he says imperiously, and closes his eyes.

Another game, then. He won't change forms unless she does it herself. Fine. She can do that. For a second, she considers giving him the form of the Fear demon she just killed, all fuzzy limbs and blinking eyes. But he would probably just find it amusing. She closes her eyes, not wanting to look at that face as she does it, and concentrates, holding the image of a long-faced, reedy blond man—the human form Mouse took in her Harrowing—in her mind. She goes over every detail she can remember, to be absolutely sure: the narrow little eyes, the wispy brows like bits of fluff stuck to the bone, the prominent jowls, the incongruous Senior Enchanter robes, all of it.

Then she opens her eyes, and Morrigan stares back at her.

"Oh," she says. She's struck by several questions all at once: What if it is Mouse, and he retained Morrigan's form because, deep down, she wanted him to? What if it's some new demon, more powerful, come to hound her sleep? And if it is her, _how_? Could she have acquired the abilities of a somniari? Or was it some ritual she performed, to send her waking consciousness into the Fade?

"Yes," Morrigan agrees. "'Oh.'" She squints, curiosity evidently piqued. "Familiar with this demon of yours, are you?"

"He is not _my_ demon. I haven't made a deal. He only—" pops in on her dreams on a regular basis to embody her deepest regrets and condescend to her about them in some sick, absurdly long game for possession. "We're acquainted," she says instead. Morrigan squints harder, like she wants to ask more about it, so she presses on quickly. "That—never mind that. It's not important. How are you? Are you safe?"

She frowns, then, visibly caught off-guard. "I—well enough. Safe enough."

It's her. It's really her. Mouse would claim to be in the clutches of some hideous abomination, consumed by her own dark designs—something to make her appropriately guilty and terrified. And that's only the start, there are so many other details he would have overlooked: the languid ease of her bearing, the natural rasp of her voice.

"Where _are_ you?" she asks, a tremble escaping in her voice, and she's not sure if it counts for or against her. Not sure what Morrigan wants out of her, now or ever, really.

Her loss in composure seems to be all Morrigan needs to regain hers. She straightens up and arches a brow. "Somewhere enough. And you? How fares your business in Amaranthine—Warden business, I presume?"

Smalltalk. Really. "How's our baby?" she fires back, and the other woman actually winces, casting her eyes down and pursing her mouth. The reaction makes her feel something between vindicated and sick.

When she doesn't answer, Surana takes advantage of the time to refresh herself on the finer details that have begun to blur in the past seven months, noting each one with a punishing exactness: those wispy strands of hair curling away from her neck, the blue-mauve shadow that lays right up against her very straight nose, that terribly sharp, particular bow of her upper lip. Maker, how she misses those early days, when Morrigan's beauty was just another fact, self-evident, distant enough so as to be almost abstract. Now, she feels its immediacy as a physical ache in her chest.

 _This is not your body_ , she reminds herself. _There is nothing here to hurt_. She tries to make it true, tries to let her borders go slack, let the Fade wash inside her and erode her edges away. There is no reason she should have edges, nor any kind of surface at all. There is no reason she should stay mired in the machinery of bodies, no reason why this simulacrum of her heart should beat out, madly, in soft, wet thuds: _Make her stay, make her stay, make her stay._

"He will be born in a few months' time," she says finally, breaking the silence. "It will go smoothly. I have... made arrangements." She looks up. "You have done me a great service, I—do not think me ungrateful. For that, or any of it. I will value—I will  _treasure_ the time we had together."

Surana is a mage. She must know where she is vulnerable to temptation. She must always, always keep apprised of the reality of the situation, and ruthlessly cut away delusions wherever they may arise.

And yet: “Don't. It's not over,” she says, and holds her gaze. "I'll keep looking for you."

Morrigan's expression hardens, her jaw setting. Sentimentality, apparently, is only allowed on her terms. “I bade you not to, on no uncertain terms. Is there nothing to occupy you, in Amaranthine? No one?”

 _There’s no one like you in all the world_ , she wants to say, except that that’s exactly what a dull, mawkish Chantry girl locked up in a tower all her life _would_ say. And in Morrigan’s brief stints in the civilized lands, how many men have said as much to her? Stumbling into her space, leering with their ale breath: _Never seen one like you before._   _It true what they say about Chasind girls?_

Instead, she catches her by the wrist and reels her in, only remembering to stand up on her tip-toes at the last second, and so of course their noses bump. Morrigan's hands immediately come up to frame either side of her face, tilting her for a better angle. One hand breaks away to smooth a thumb over the juncture where her ear meets her jaw. It's been seven months; this gesture alone is enough to make Surana feel like she might actually die. The other drops to her waist, then her hip, then fists in the fabric, tugging at it in a request for help hitching it up.

She breaks away. "Fade sex attracts demons," she explains, and pairs it with a winning smile.

Morrigan doesn't quite laugh, but it's a close thing: a hard exhale and a shake of the shoulders. She brings one of Surana's wrists to her mouth and kisses her pulse, smiles toothily against her skin, and then pulls away to say, "Our fearless leader, already grown so cautious in her retirement?"

She grins back. She only means to be a tease. Her next line is already all lined up and ready to go: "But what's a few demons to the most brilliant and talented mage in all of Thedas? Accompanied by the Hero of Ferelden, no less?" And it wouldn't be begging, not exactly, but it would buy her time—she could say something, do something—

But what can she say? What can she do? Sex isn't enough, and what else has she to offer? Nothing but that sodden, bloodless species of pity—the Circle mage's closest approximation of love, all bloated and cloying with rot. And she tried to disguise it, tried to reappropriate it into something remotely palatable, even desirable—but it wasn't enough. Clearly, it wasn't enough. Because Morrigan is already drawing away. Leaving, again.

"Your caution is not misplaced. And I have tarried far too long, I did not—I have other business. Forgive me," she says, not even _looking_ at her—Surana opens her mouth, ready to argue, to shout, to actually beg—and pulls the Fade down around them, sudden and unforgiving as a thunderclap.

She wakes up in her vast featherbed, sickeningly soft after eighteen years of straw and one of hard ground. On impulse, she gropes around for the nearest object, fingers closing around a slim column of glass, and hurls it against the wall. She recognizes it by the wet sound it makes when it shatters: a gift from Oghren, after a fashion, the empty Aqua Magus bottle he returned to her because of its "nice color." She had cleaned it out, filled it with water, and stuck a clump of wildflowers in it. Stupid. She moves on to a small pile of books, pitching them one after another at the wall, for a series of unsatisfying thumps. Next is her oil lamp, which is better: glass shattering, oil splashing, metal clanging. Good. Then a tiny inkpot full of pretty, expensive green pigment. The noise it makes is closer to a tinkle than a crash, and she almost screams in frustration. Not  _enough_.

She reaches out for something else, something better, something heavier, only to find her bedside table completely cleared. No matter. She's of half a mind to get up and move on to her dresser, perhaps upend the table itself—she stops. Sits rigidly upright. Her legs are under the covers, and her hands are over them. She looks at her hands. They are small, and dark, and scarred. She sits. She looks at her hands. She sits. Those are her hands. They are small, and dark, and scarred. She sits. She thinks about nothing at all, for a very long time.

Then she moves a hand, raises it up—how strange it feels, how suddenly novel, to displace the air around her—and snaps, to summon a light. Carefully, deliberately, she lifts the covers up, folds them over, and slides out of bed to clean up the mess.

* * *

"You’re getting too old for this,” Mama scolds, but opens her arms up anyway. Neria leaps into the bed and mashes her face into her mother’s chest, taking deep breaths so she doesn’t start sobbing. She knows she’s too old, already four, old enough to do the sweeping and the laundry and help with the cooking. Old enough that she feels ashamed to wake Mama, who leaves for work before the sun is up and doesn’t come back until after it’s long gone, just to comfort her.

But the nightmares are so, so scary. Neria’s never seen a shem before, but after seeing the way they hurt Alim—a string of purple bruises across his cheekbone, eye swollen shut, shattered teeth that he spat like dice onto the table—she can only imagine them as terrible giants with lumbering, thunderous steps. She dreams about them poking and prodding Alim with huge, slow fingers, turning him over in their hands like a toy. At thirteen, he’s almost as tall as a grown-up, but still so thin, so easy to snap. She shudders.

Mama smooths a hand over her hair. “Is this about Alim still?” she asks, and tuts when she nods. “None of that,” she tells her. “Your brother’s tough. He can take a bit of a beating.”

Can he? Mama didn’t seem so sure the day it happened, when she opened the door to see Alim’s face and screamed like—like nothing Neria’s ever heard before, nothing at all like any sound a person makes—grabbing him by the arm and dragging him to the Hahren’s house, shouting up and down in the street that by the Dread Wolf she’d find them, lop their dicks off, make them pay.

But maybe she’s changed her mind about that, because now she says, “He’s got such a smart mouth on him; it was only a matter of time. But he knows better now, sweetling, doesn’t he? Shem aren’t _all_ scary. Doesn’t Mama work with them every day? And look at me! I’m doing just fine, aren't I?”

She can’t help it; she breaks into a wail at that. She was so stupid to never think of that, and surely any day now her mother will get snapped to bits at work and never come home, and she’ll be left all alone, some beggar girl with no Mama.

“ _Hush_ ,” she says, growing impatient now. Neria hiccups, trying to get her breaths under control, and starts when Mama takes her face into her hands. For a long moment, she scans it intently—and then her face eases, seemingly pleased with what she finds.

“Look at that face,” she says admiringly, rubbing her cheek with a thumb. “Sweet, you’ll be just fine. Who'd ever hurt a face like that?”

She smiles weakly at the praise.

Mama nods in approval, and Neria feels the glow of it like sunlight. “There we go, da'len. Just like that. Nobody'll harm a hair on your head, just so long as you smile."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Thus, we Tranquil are vital. The young and old may stare at me, ill at ease, but they would be worse off without me. They may think me a failure, but there is no horror for me now. I feel no fear of what I am. The shadows are merely shadows, and I am content."
> 
>  [\--Eddin the Meek, Tranquil of the Circle of Magi of Starkhaven, the Free Marches.](http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Codex_entry:_Journal_of_the_Tranquil)


End file.
